If you've ever found yourself reading a science article and had no idea what the heck a measurement means than you know it takes away from your understanding of an article. Write Ben Young Landis suggests one way to deal with this is to use Wolfram Alpha to convert that measurement into something you can understand.

If you type a measurement into Wolfram Alpha, say, 50 microns, you'll get the usual unit conversions that you'd expect. However, you also get results like, ".04 x length of a dust mite," or ".46 x thickness of a US dollar bill." It's a lot more useful to most people to think of "about half the thickness of a dollar bill" than it is "50 microns." If you ever find yourself stuck on the measurements when reading an article, this quick search might be a helpful way to understand it a little more.